Many people today consume fast foods and snacks in their cars. In such circumstances, people often find it difficult to spice up their food with condiments without making a mess. For instance, vehicle occupants typically find it difficult to eat french fries with ketchup in their vehicles, because they lack the room to spread out the fries and dip them in ketchup. This is especially so in today""s smaller, fuel-efficient cars which tend to have less space between the driver and passenger seats.
Hence, vehicle occupants typically squirt the condiment (e.g., ketchup) on top of the food (e.g., fries) while the food is still in its container. This does not spread the condiment evenly, and often results in messy fingers and hands because the consumer has to grab the food by the end that is covered with the condiment. The food that is covered with the condiment can also spill, and this causes a mess in the car and on the consumer""s clothes.
Vehicle occupants can also squirt the condiment on a detached surface, such as a spare piece of paper or wrapping. But, in this situation, the condiment is in jeopardy of creating a messy spill (e.g., creating a spill due to sudden deceleration or movement of the vehicle). Box-type packages (such as those used for containing sweet and sour, honey mustard, barbecue, or ranch dip) can be similarly unstable if they are not affixed to a surface.
Each of these problems can also serve to distract the driver and thereby lead to an accident. Moreover, these problems are more serious for the driver, who has at most one hand to manage the food and the condiments. Some drivers at times attempt to hold an open condiment package against the steering wheel with the one hand, while dipping food items with the other hand. This all-too-common practice severely impedes the driver""s ability to steer the vehicle and can cause a spill.
Because of these problems, vehicle drivers and passengers often reluctantly avoid using condiments or avoid ordering food that they prefer to eat with condiments. To address this need, rigid special-purpose apparatuses (such as the devices disclosed in U.S. Pat. 5,667,119) have been proposed. These apparatuses attach to the car to hold the food and condiments. It would be impractical, however, for food vendors to distribute such apparatuses with each sale due to their material cost. In addition, these apparatuses would probably need to be attached to a window (because it is unlikely that consumers would permanently attach the apparatus in another location of their vehicles); however, such an attachment would block the driver""s vision.
Also, if the apparatus protrudes into the passenger compartment, the apparatus might injure the occupants of the vehicle in the event of an accident. Federal regulations (promulgated by the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration) require specific interior padding, prohibit sharp angles, and otherwise restrict the shape and contour of interior appointments, in order to prevent injuries. See, e.g., 49 CFR xc2xa7 571.201.
Some have also proposed food containers with attached condiment containers (see, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,429,262). However, such a solution would require that the consumer maintain the food container in a constant upright position to prevent the condiment from spilling. Keeping the food container in an upright position while driving is not always possible. This is especially so if the condiment container makes the food container unstable. Such a device might also require a new type of food container.
At present, there is no practical disposable condiment package that the fast food vendors can distribute to avoid these problems. The invention provides a portable condiment container that solves the problems faced by vehicle occupants who wish to eat while they are in their vehicles. The invention also provides a feasible solution for easily attaching condiments to a variety of surfaces, such as vertical, horizontal, slanting, curved, angled or other surfaces.
The invention is a condiment container that can attach to other objects. As used in this document, condiment means any seasoning or sauce that is used to enhance the flavor of any food or snack. Examples of condiments include ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, soy sauce, ranch dressing, vegetable dip, salsa, barbecue sauce, teriyaki sauce, sweet-n-sour sauce, chocolate fudge, etc.
In one embodiment of the invention, the condiment container is a portable and disposable container that adhesively attaches to the interior of a vehicle. This embodiment facilitates the eating of food and snacks while driving. In this embodiment, the container has a sealed container body that stores a condiment. This container body can have any shape (e.g., it can be a packet or a bucket). A consumer can unseal the container body and expose the condiment stored in it.
This embodiment also includes an attaching arm that rotatably couples to the container body. The arm has an adhesive material on one of its sides. A consumer can attach the container to a surface in the vehicle by rotating the arm away from the container body and abutting the adhesive side of the arm to the vehicle surface.